Fire alarms in elementary schools and young children

This past week I had a conversation with a 6 year old in an elementary school after he pulled the fire alarm. I gave the standard, "We could have been needed elsewhere", speech.

Does the NFPA or any one in the community have any resources or suggestions on how to address the non malicious, just curious, pulling of fire alarms in schools.

Also, is there an age or maturity level where we should be advising younger children to find an adult before pulling the alarm in a perceived emergency or should we just leave it that it should be the first thought to all ages?

This is a great question, and I would assume a very feasible request. It is easy to take an approach when there is a clear malicious pull by a mature adult. My first thoughts were to look towards the Juvenile / Youth Fire setter programs that many departments have for insights into that. Its tough to be able to explain the seriousness and severity of those actions when the same action may be needed to one day save lives.

You may have budding engineer who has a desire to know more about how things work! Children in the lower primary grades love "show and tell". Schools typically teach school age children how and when to evacuate the building, but most schools never teach students anything about the fire alarm, detection, and suppression systems that may be installed in their school building. Most students can go from kindergarten to a graduate degree, 18 years of education, without even being taught the basics about fire safety systems in the buildings where they spend a significant portion of their day.

Sounds ripe for some lesson plan development. The more children learn about fire safety systems younger in life the more they can carry with them to their own home and future work place in terms of awareness. Might also help the fire community work on reducing the number of deaths from non-functional/missing smoke/CO detectors in homes.

Hi Dave -- That's a great question and it has us talking about what this resource could look like! We don't have anything specific to the school setting right now but you might find the "Fire Alarms in Apartment Buildings" lesson plan helpful. There are some relevant points in there and the conversation could be tweaked to work in the school setting.

As a former teacher (21 years) who has seen this issue come up on more than one occasion. It really is dependent on the child since at that age there can be huge differences in maturity and sense of guilt. We had alarmed covers installed over the alarms in one of the schools I worked at and that solved the problem. In the other case the situation was resolved by a conference with the chief, principle, teacher, parent and child. This is a difficult situation with no single solution. I wish you luck.

You can buy a clear lexan cover, that is battery powered, it mounts to the wall over the pull station. To activate the pull station (in an emergency) pull cover off and activate as usual. This cover has a high pitch alarm that will sound when cover is removed, also has a lanyard that keeps cover attached to base. This will usually scare children away and will alert anyone of the tampering. To reset, simply put cover back on. Talk to your local fire alarm installer for more info.